Willpower
by WizardsGirl
Summary: Boy had always known pain. Now he was learning about something even worse. DARK FIC with a Happy Ending! READ THE WARNINGS INSIDE! Non-Magic, AU, OOC, I'm cleaning out my Plot Bunnies. Please Review!


**A/N:** Ignore me, I'm just throwing out the Plot Bunnies, getting in a bit of Spring Cleaning, dee-de-dee, la-dee-da~

But no, seriously, **WARNINGS:** Child Abuse, Child Molestation (Non-Graphic), Mental Instability in a Child, Selling of Children, Child Death (non-graphic), Kidnapping, TRIGGERS, idek what else, this is a Dark!Fic and THAT should tell you something. NON-MAGIC, OC's, AU, Messing with the Timeline and so on...

I'm a horrible person I KNOW, but I'm cleaning my brain of stuff, so that means a bunch of fics & chapters half-started all over the place (Seriously, I have like six new stories started and am probably gonna post them randomly as I finish) UPDATES WILL BE FEW ON ALL PREVIOUSLY STARTED FICS.

This is a ONE-SHOT Read at your own risk!

Don't forget to leave a Review!

**Willpower**

_Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. _

_M. Kathleen Casey_

Boy was used to pain. It was his constant companion. The pain from his belly, so empty that it was sucked under his ribs. The pain from his beatings, dispensed when he was a _**Bad Boy**_, opening his back with the whistle-_SMACK_ of the belt or crop or switch, or the wet, heavy _THUMP_ of fists or boots or the baseball bat smacking into him. It was what overwhelmed his knees and back and arms as he spent hours upon hours scrubbing and washing and cleaning, again and again, knowing it was never good enough.

It was the thing that ached in his chest, thumping repeatedly every day, hurting worse with every insult, every curse, every hateful word spat at him by his caretakers.

Because of this, he had a good scale in his head, of how bad something was. Was this as bad as the time his arm made that cracking sound and he couldn't use it right for months, or was this as bad as no food for a day? Was it a beating, or a tongue lashing? A week locked outside in the snow, or a month doing extra chores? He used this to work with the situations that occurred, to adapt to everything possible.

When his male caretaker, Vernon (Not Uncle, _never_ **Uncle** because that was _**BAD**_. He was **Sir** and that was all. Boy had learned this _very_ early and Boy _always_ remembered his Lessons), pulled him from his closet in the middle of the night, dragged him from their new house (Boy's caretakers had decided to move to a place called Columbus, Ohio in America, just three weeks before) and shoved him into the trunk of another man's car, Boy knew that this was something **Very Bad**, but he wasn't sure if it was the Cracked-Arm Bad, the Beating Bad, or the Snow-Week Bad, just that it was **Bad**. It was hours before he was let out of the trunk, and when he was, the Man pulled him into the strange house and then took him to a room, which was blue and green with little dinosaurs on the walls, and told Boy that it was going to be _HIS ROOM_. Then the Man told him to change into the clothes the Man picked out and had left on the bed (_His_ bed! In _HIS ROOM_!), before the Man sat in a chair and fiddled with a strange black thing that Boy vaguely thought was called a video recorder or something like that. Boy had quickly stripped out of his clothes, scared and nervous about everything, because nothing had been done, yet, to hurt him, but he still knew that this was something **Bad**.

The outfit was made of blue denim shorts and a white t-shirt, with a little green dinosaur on the front. There was underwear, little white briefs with blue outlines and tiny dinosaurs on them, too, and Boy was quick to pull it all on. The Man said he was a _**Good Boy**_, said he was so pretty, and set the black thing on the table so that he could sit on Boy's new bed and pull Boy up onto his lap. The Man said he was going to be Boy's new Daddy, and that Boy would get special treats as long as he was a _**Good Boy**_. Boy agreed and promised he would be **Good**, and the Man, Daddy, smiled and started to pet and touch and suddenly, Boy knew how **Bad** this was.

It wasn't just **Bad**, but _**VERY BAD**_ and when Daddy hurt him in his bottom, when Daddy hurt him and hurt him and HURT HIM it wasn't even _**VERY BAD**_ anymore.

It was _**WORSE**_ and Boy was scared, so scared, and he didn't know what to do or how to make Daddy _not_ do the _**WORSE**_ thing, because if he was **Bad** it would hurt even _more_!

So, Boy was a _**Good Boy**_ and begged for help in silence, because making that into words would get him **In Trouble** and he had to be **Good**.

But that didn't mean he ever stopped.

It was a Very Long Time before he saw anyone but never really left _HIS ROOM_, and even for Bath Time, there was a potty and tub through one of the doors in _HIS ROOM_. This time was different, though. When Daddy came in, he had a little girl with him. She was Boy's age, about six (or was he seven, now? He never really knew his birthday...), and she had soft-looking blond hair and big, tearful blue eyes. She was crying, and Daddy was looking unhappy with it, his brown eyes hot and irritated but edged with something Boy thought was Panic, and his brown hair was mussed like he'd been tugging it. The Girl was wearing a cute pink dress, with little white bunnies on it, and Boy blinked at her curiously from where he was sitting on the floor with his big, stuffed T-Rex.

"Daddy?" he asked softly, hesitantly, and tilted his head like he knew his Daddy liked, making his big green eyes even bigger. Daddy's eyes focused on him, and Boy made his lips purse, slightly, like he was pouting. "Who's that?" He asked childishly, keeping his voice soft. Daddy hated loud noises, and especially hated crying unless he was giving a Punishment or the _**WORSE**_ thing. Daddy gave him a wide smile, and pulled the Girl into _HIS ROOM_.

"This is your new sister, baby boy," Daddy told him. "Her name is Abby. I want you to play nice while Daddy goes and takes care of a few things, okay?" Boy nodded and Daddy let go of the Girl, Abby, before leaving _HIS ROOM_. Boy watched as Abby hid behind His Bed, curling up and crying, and he sighed a bit, mournfully staring at his T-Rex and wondering what to do. Finally, he got up and went over to the girl, sitting down and offering his toy to her with a smile.

"Hi," he said simply; she sniffled and hesitantly hugged his stuffed dinosaur when he gave it to her. "My name is Boy. It's nice to meet you, Abby." She sniffled some more and watched him with her big eyes. "I know you're probably scared, it's okay! Daddy isn't _mean_ as long as you're **Good** and don't get loud. He doesn't like it when it's loud," Boy confided in a whisper. Abby hesitantly nodded, tightening her grip on his toy. Boy stayed there, talking softly, telling Abby the rules that Daddy left unspoken or what got you Punishment.

When Daddy came back later, he was calmer, and started playing with Abby. He sent Boy to the bathroom, running him a bath and turning on the Radio that Boy wasn't allowed to touch, making it loud enough Boy couldn't hear what was happening in _HIS ROOM_. So, Boy worried, and played with his ducky and his ship and one of the many hard dinosaur toys Daddy had given him, and huddled in the slowly cooling water when he heard muffled screams and Daddy's angry yelling, and then silence beyond the happy music spewing from the speakers.

The water was cold when Daddy came back, looking ruffled and a little wild and anxious. He emptied the water and put in new, hot water, joining Boy and washing him, touching him until he had calmed down, and started to slowly do the _**VERY BAD**_ things that would lead to the _**WORSE**_ thing soon enough.

"Was Abby bad?" Boy asked hesitantly, and whimpered as Daddy hurt him _down there_ for the question.

"Yes, baby boy," Daddy finally grunted, panting against Boy's ear as he moved them around. "Abby was _**Very Bad**_ and won't be your sister anymore." He pressed a sloppy kiss to Boy's ear. "I'll find a new one for you, don't worry. Daddy loves his baby boy, so good, such a good boy for Daddy..." But Boy knew that the _**WORSE**_ thing wasn't Love, he knew because he remembered, sometimes, the lady with red hair and eyes like his, and how soft her hands and kisses were, and how she'd hold him, and _that_ was _LOVE_ and it was a **Good Thing**.

But he didn't say that, he just said "I love you too, Daddy" and let the _**WORSE**_ thing happen.

A Very Long Time passed, interrupted by random little girls that were all small and blond and blue-eyed, all of which disappeared quickly, disposed of for being **Bad**. Boy knew, as he got bigger, that those little girls were dying, were making Daddy so angry he killed them, and so he started to make a point of writing their names on a piece of paper, getting their names from the girls themselves when Daddy left to calm down after every time he came with a new one. He didn't want to ever forget them, and the twenty-two names were hidden in the belly of his favorite T-Rex, the one who made noises when you squeezed it, it's back held shut by Velcro.

Boy grew taller and older, but the girls were always six or seven, always little blond girls with big blue eyes and cute little outfits.

None of them lasted more than a few hours. But none of them were killed in front of him, because he was Daddy's Good Baby Boy and he wasn't allowed to watch them be Punished, which he was very glad for.

Then came the day that Daddy didn't come. He didn't bring Boy any food, didn't come to do the _**WORSE**_ thing, which Boy now knew the name of but refused to say (it hurt his head and heart to say it, to know it, so he didn't, hiding as he was behind his childish words and thoughts and preferring it that way). It was a long time, long enough that the vaguely remembered pains that once plagued his stomach came back. He sat in the middle of _HIS ROOM_ and played with his toys and talked to his T-Rex and, when the door slowly opened, he looked up, expecting to see Daddy, maybe with food, hopefully with food and not another little sister, Boy was always sad when Daddy brought them...

But, no, it wasn't Daddy. It was a group of strange men and women, wearing dark colors and weird vests with large gold letters on them that read FBI and holding guns. Boy stared at them, clinging to his T-Rex, making it roar in the stunned silence as the dark-skinned man in front lifted one hand up away from the gun, and slowly re-holstered it.

"It's okay," he said soothingly, slowly creeping into the room. Boy felt a surge of anxiety, scrambling back a little ways, until his back pressed against the wall, eyes wide. No one but Daddy and all his little sisters had ever been in _HIS ROOM_ before! "You're safe now, everything's going to be okay," the dark-skinned man said; Boy liked his voice, even if he made Boy nervous. And his skin was so _strange_, too! Boy had never seen someone with dark skin before! The man crept even closer and then slowly knelt in front of Boy, and Boy hugged his T-Rex even closer.

"My name's Derek," the dark-skinned man told him. "What's your name?" Boy stared at him.

"Boy," he whispered back. "Daddy calls me Baby Boy sometimes, but I've always been Boy. You shouldn't be in here," he whispered at Derek, eyes wide. "If Daddy finds you in here, he'll Punish you, and then you'll go where all the little sisters went." Derek's dark, dark eyes widened slightly.

"The little sisters?" He asked, a sense of urgency in his tone. "Kiddo, _where_ are all the little sisters? Where did Barlow take them?" Boy hesitated, then tightened his arms around his T-Rex, leaning hesitantly forward. He liked Derek, with his strangely pretty skin and his dark, dark eyes and his soothing voice.

"I don't know where he took them... _After_," Boy whispered. "They made Daddy mad. Daddy doesn't like crying unless he made you cry, and he doesn't like loud noises or fighting. When he did... _That_... To them, they always fought and screamed and cried, and Daddy get's so _mad_ sometimes." He hesitated, then shrank back a bit, cuddling his T-Rex. "I think he killed all the little sisters," he whispered to Derek, eyes wide. "Gotta be a _**Good Boy**_ or else I'll get Punished, gotta be **Good**, I gotta..." He fell quiet, rocking slightly, shivering as his stomach ached some more. Derek said a naughty word, and Boy gave him huge, frantic eyes, before waving a hand at him. "No bad words! No! Daddy doesn't like that, you'll get Punished! Shh! Shh!" He scrabbled forward and placed his fingers on Derek's mouth, eyes zipping around frantically. "Shh, shh, shh, shh, gotta be quiet! No loud noises, no bad words, gotta be **Good**!" He shivered, and twitched when Derek carefully grabbed his hand and pulled it from his mouth.

"Okay, alright, it's okay, kiddo, calm down," Derek soothed, voice gentle. There were murmurs at the door and Boy ducked down again, hunching behind Derek's form and peering over his shoulder with huge eyes. "Hey, kiddo, are you hungry?" Derek whispered; Boy nodded silently, and twitched as Derek slowly stood, Boy curled in his arms. Boy tucked himself into a ball, curling one of his long, thin arms around Derek's neck, the other curled tightly around his T-Rex. As Derek carefully started moving towards the door, Boy began to panic, breath stuttering, and hid his face in Derek's neck, panting against his skin, whimpering softly.

"Not allowed out, not allowed, Daddy's gonna be mad, not allowed out," he whispered frantically into the warm, dark skin, Derek shushing him softly as he carried Boy. There was a lot of noise, a lot of people, and Derek took him into a strange car with flashing lights, and he got to lay on a weird bed and they put a needle in his arm. Derek held his hand and they didn't try to take his T-Rex after he had given a loud, terrified keen when they first tried.

Now he was in a white room, on a weird bed surrounded by curtains, and he was wearing a strange robe that they made him wear backwards. Derek told him that the man in the blue uniform that was standing outside the door was a Police Officer, and was named Officer Gentry, and that if Boy needed anything, he was to ask Officer Gentry or his Doctor, who said he could call her Miss Maddy. People came, they asked questions, over and over and over, but sometimes Boy got so confused! They used big words and sometimes got angry and, despite the fact Daddy told him he wasn't supposed to, Boy had cried, more than once. It was always best, though, when Derek visited, or Spencer, or JJ, or any of the people they worked with.

Today was different, though. Today, Derek had brought with him a woman who looked so tired and sad and scared that Boy couldn't be scared of her.

"Hey, kiddo," Derek greeted him as the woman hesitantly sat down in the extra chair next to the bed, while Derek perched on the bed next to him, looking at Boy's lap, where he was painstakingly drawing a picture of him and all the little sisters, just as he always drew. "Another one of you and the little sisters?" Derek asked; Boy nodded silently, before tugging on the FBI Agent's shirt, until the man leaned down so Boy could whisper in his ear.

"Why's that lady so sad?" he asked shyly; Derek pulled back and gently stroked Boy's messy black hair back from his forehead, making it even worse than before.

"She's missing her baby girl," Derek whispered back gently. "We think her baby girl was one of the little sisters. Did you know their names? Can you remember them?" Boy hesitated, looking at the sad woman, who was staring at him desperately. Slowly, he nodded, and then reached for the T-Rex that was sitting on the side table. He hugged it close.

"What was her name?" Boy asked the woman, squeezing his T-Rex and making it roar. The woman quickly reached into her purse, hands trembling and tears dripping down her face.

"Jessica," the woman choked out, holding out a picture, which Boy tentatively reached for. "Jessica Godfrey, she's, um, she'd be ten now. She, she went missing three years ago and-"

"I know her," Boy whispered, gently trailing his fingertips down one smiling, dimpled cheek. "I remember all the little sisters, but Jessie was my favorite. She said my eyes were pretty, and she wasn't as scared as the others," Boy whispered, and felt a tear slip down his cheek to plop onto the picture, making it look like the little girl was crying. Boy silently wiped it off and hesitantly handed the picture back. "I'm sorry for your loss," he whispered, just like Miss Maddy had told him he should say, when someone lost a loved one. The woman choked, and then began to weep, burying her face in her hands. Miss Emily, one of Derek's friends, moved from the door to lead the lady out, and Boy bowed his head, fiddling with his T-Rex uncertainly.

"You did good today, kiddo," Derek told him, pulling him into a one-armed hug. "I'm proud of you." Boy smiled slightly at him, and then stared down at his hands, so much bigger, now, on the slightly faded sides of his purple T-Rex. Derek got up and started to leave.

"Derek?" He asked softly, hesitantly. "Did you ever find any of the little sisters?" Derek hesitated.

"A few," he admitted. "But not as many as we thought there would be. Not as many as we know he hurt."

"There were twenty-two little sisters," Boy told him softly. "I know all their names, but some I only know their first ones." Derek moved closer and shifted until Boy was forced to lift his head and meet those dark, dark eyes.

"Kiddo, kiddo you gotta give me those names, okay?" There was urgency in Derek's voice, a firmness edged with a pleading note. "Can you do that for me, kiddo?" Boy hesitated, staring down at his T-Rex.

"...If I give you them, they'll be gone," he whispered to himself. "But if I don't... Then Daddy... Barlow... Won't be Punished for what he did to them, how he hurt them," Boy struggled to say, lifting a hand to tug on his hair roughly, whimpering as panic tried to edge in. Derek soothed him swiftly, and Boy took a deep breath, closing his eyes tightly, before silently pulling apart the Velcro on his T-Rex's back, and reaching deep into the fluffy inside, until he finally pulled out a small, folded piece of paper, and quietly handing it to Derek.

"Take care of them for me, Derek," Boy told him in a serious whisper. "They're the only family I've ever had, and Daddy took them all away from me." Derek took the paper, and quickly unfolded it after promising to take care of them, staring at the names written in careful, childish scrawls, legible even though it was in crayon.

"Thank you, kiddo, thank you," Derek whispered, hugging him tight, before he ran out the door, already pulling out his cell phone and starting to talk to Hotchner. Boy settled back on the bed, and silently stared at the T-Rex. He set it on the side table, and turned away, laying with his back to it.

He didn't like it any more.

It was a year later that he was allowed out of the hospital they had kept him, and he had a name. They'd found out his name was Harry, Harry James Potter, and that he was now seventeen. His birthday was July 31st, and he'd been a captive of one Jonathon Marcus Barlow for exactly ten years. He had a Foster mother named Faith Moore, and an older Foster-brother named Ethan, who was teaching him how to ride a bike. Derek called him once a month and checked on him, usually making it an on-speaker call, or a video-call, so Harry could talk to the whole Team.

He was getting better, he knew he was.

It was just a little hard sometimes, remembering that he didn't have to be a _**Good Boy**_, just Harry, but his new Mom and Ethan were helping a lot.

His name was Harry, and he wanted to be just like the BAU when he grew up.

_The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. _

_Martin Luther King, Jr._

**A/N:** Sorry if this got confusing or anything. I wanted a nice, Dark HP/Criminal Minds x-over, and so I started on this and, there you go.

I'm sorry and yet, I'm not...

So...

Yeah...


End file.
